


Line Without a Hook

by Keith_Wilde



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Insecurity, M/M, Short One Shot, TK needs a hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keith_Wilde/pseuds/Keith_Wilde
Summary: Nolan comes to visit his boyfriend at the lake for the first time. The family he can handle, but what he wasn't expecting was an insecure Travis.--or--Women want me, fish fear me, and I fear that my boyfriend doesn't actually like me because he's Nolan Patrick and never smiles or speaks.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 8
Kudos: 214





	Line Without a Hook

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first time writing for this pairing, and I just, man. I love these two idiots so much. I am 1000% here for their dynamic where Nolan begrudgingly lets TK devote his entire life to him, but once in a while I thought TK deserves some affection. You know, as a treat.
> 
> Oh yeah, and the whole thing was inspired by this lovely Ricky Montgomery song. Anyway! Hope you enjoy and let me know if I did okay!

_“I broke all my bones that day_

_I found you crying at the lake_

_Was it something I said to make you feel like you're a burden?_

_And if I could take it all back_

_I swear that I would pull you from the tide”_

_-_ -Ricky Montgomery _, Line Without a Hook_

  
  


The list of things that could get more than a few words out of Nolan Patrick was short to begin with. Add in the chance to prove Travis right, and you had a recipe for a classic Patty-Patented-Stonewall-of-Silence. And yet… When Travis was right, he was right. Nolan could get used to this. 

Of course, he was _definitely_ going to keep chirping Teeks for being a hick during the season--he couldn’t give up his favorite pastime. But secretly, he maybe saw the appeal of spending afternoons like this. Surrounded by buddies and beers and boats. Sunshine and swimmed-out exhaustion. No worries but the weather report. It was kind of nice--y’know, if you could get past the shitty music.

It was that late afternoon, early evening stretch of the day that felt like it could’ve been two seconds or ten years, and they were barbecuing on the beach with Travis’ family. He felt utterly blissed out, the worries of the season washing out to tide with the sunscreen that hadn’t stuck. It was a rare feeling for Patty. He knew it wouldn’t last forever, that he could wake up tomorrow throwing up with his head splitting in two, and he was going to goddamn enjoy it.

He was having such a good time, in fact, that he didn’t even notice Travis was gone. How could he when he was being served homemade brownies from the cooler by Travis’ mom?

“Thanks, Mrs. Konecny,” he said, managing a genuine smile. He was dramatic, but he wasn’t _rude,_ and he knew hanging with his boyfriend’s parents wasn’t the place for posturing. He was happy.

“No problem, Nolan. You wanna take one for Travis, too?”

“Sure,” he beamed. He could see where his boyfriend got his friendliness from. The whole family was like that, though--had immediately made Nolan feel like one of the fold. He wasn’t much of a talker--obviously--and they were okay with that. As long as you showed up and didn’t squirm over baiting the hook and watched the cooking when you were asked and _showed_ people you cared about them. He’d been visiting for almost a week now, and if this was a trial run for his future family, suffice to say it was going well. 

Well, except for the part where when he turned to find Travis, he wasn’t there. 

“Teeks?” Nolan scanned the small crowd, but Travis was never very difficult to find. If you couldn’t hear Travis Konecny, he probably wasn’t there. 

Brownies and beers in hand, pretty mouth set into a determined line, Patty set off around the lake. How far could TK be? He was halfway down the shore though, party noise all but faded in the background, when he saw Teeks’ slim silhouette sitting on the edge of a secluded dock.

Fuck, Teeks was pretty. He would never in a million years tell him that, he couldn’t even if he wanted to, but with the breeze picking up the ends of his hair, soft, round shoulders flexing in the heat as he leaned back on his hands… Patty could’ve married him right then and there. Y’know, if he had asked.

“Hey, loser. Thought I’d lost you for a second there,” Patty said in his signature monotone as he walked across the dock. But when Teeks’ eyes came up to meet his, they were red like he’d been crying or something. His mouth was twisted, and staring up at Patty, he for once looked his age-- not the man swinging fists on the ice but just a boy. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, Nols,” Travis said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand as he got up and pushed past him. “What the fuck.” 

And suddenly the bliss was broken, and Patty was left standing on the edge of the water, shadows lengthening with the sun, watching as his boyfriend ran to get away from him. 

***

It was almost an hour later when he found him again, having circled most of the leaf-lined lake twice only to find Travis back at the same dock where they started. 

“How did I know you would come back here?” Patty asked, thick arms crossed over his thick chest.

“There’s not that many places to go.” Travis’ voice was still a little ragged, and it twisted a part of Nolan’s heart he hadn’t known was there. He hated knowing that he’d made it sound that way, but he hated not knowing why more. “My neighbors own all the places on the beach.”

Nolan’s mouth tweaked up a bit in a smile at the annoyance in Travis’ voice, in spite of everything. _Fuck,_ he wanted to get close to him, to wind his arms around his waist and drop his cheek to his shoulder and remind him where he belonged. He wanted to take the pieces of the Travis he’d seen earlier and rearrange them into the Travis he knew, the one who was sweet and secure and _so much,_ all the time, but in a way that made him feel safe. But that wasn’t the Travis that was in front of him, and if there was one thing he’d never counted on dealing with, it was a silent TK. Somehow Nolan had fucked up, and now he wasn’t sure of the play. So he fell back on making some space.

“You could’ve like, not gone back to the water,” he said, filling the silence.

“I like the water.” 

He’d almost been able to look at Patty that time, shooting a glare back behind him before looking ahead again. Nolan took that as a good sign. He sat down next to him gingerly, still leaving a passing lane between them, in case Teeks needed to cut back and escape.

“I know you do. Because I know you, Teeks.” Travis was still looking anywhere but at him. “But I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what I did.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“Well that’s something you’ve never said,” he said thoughtlessly, earning another glare. “Sorry. I just, I thought we were having a good time.”

“Go jump in the lake, Nols.”

Well, clearly this was getting nowhere. Nolan was about to get up and go back to the party, leave TK to cool off, when a light came on in his mind. This was uncharted territory, and years of playing sports had taught him that the best way to fight uncharted territory was with _instinct_. And his instinct was to do what he did best, which was to get TK to smile again. 

“Would that make you feel better? If I jumped in the lake?”

“No,” Travis replied sourly. 

“Would it get you to stop looking like a kicked puppy?”

“Maybe.”

“Done.”

Nolan got up and popped off his shirt. The sun felt good on his chest, like it was telling him this was totally the right move. He stretched, making a real goddamn show of it, testing to see if he was getting a reaction. _Nothing._ Fuck, Shirtless Nolan only didn’t get a reaction when they had had a _truly_ horrific game. Like, a playoff loss game. So this must really be bad. 

“Jesus, Nols,” Travis said. “You don’t _actually_ have to jump in the lake.”

“Kiss me, then.” He said it in his bitchiest voice, the one he knew Travis hated to love so much. Fucking sue him, he was getting tired of goofing around. He was ready to have his boyfriend back. Who knew he’d ever want Travis Konecny to _talk_ so much. 

“Fuck off.”

“If you don’t kiss me within the next five seconds I am jumping in this lake.”  
  


“You are so fucking ridiculous, you know that--”

“Five,” he started counting down, taking his shoes off. “Four.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Three. Two.”

“You _won’t_.”

“One.” 

And with that, Nolan cannonballed into the lake, bringing his massive thighs up to his massive torso so he created a tsunami that came up to soak Travis to the bone.

“Nolan, what the hell?!”

Travis was standing now, and if anything, Patty was sure he’d just made him _madder,_ but nobody had ever accused him of being all that nice. In the very least _he_ was laughing now, treading water beneath TK, who looked a little like a drowned rat. But like, the cutest drowned rat of all time. Much better.

“I loved this snapback, man,” Teeks was saying as he wrung it out. “You suck.”

“I promise I’ll convince the Flyers staff to get you a new one,” he teased, eliciting a glare. “Oh, come on. Come in here and talk to me. What did I do? I can’t fix it if you don’t talk to me.”

“I thought you didn’t _do_ talking.” TK looked down at the water, and _bingo._ Ah. So that was the problem. All the teasing washed out of him, going out with the tide. 

“Maybe,” he said softly. “But I can try.”

He swam up to the dock, running a hand over Travis’ foot and tugging until he gently coaxed him into the water. He slid in infinitely more gracefully than Nolan had, and he was reminded yet again how much more there was to TK than people saw. He pulled Travis to him, getting him to begrudgingly wrap his legs around Patty’s waist. He buried his face in Travis’ neck, breathing in deeply the sweat and lake water and that particular _TK_ smell that he couldn’t describe except with words like _woodsy_ and _intoxicating._

“There,” he said quietly, treading water for both of them. “Doesn’t that feel better?” 

TK just grumbled into Nolan’s shoulder, making him smile in spite of himself. 

“Hey, mumbling’s _my_ thing, remember? You’re gonna have to speak up for me, bud.” TK sighed heavily and finally started talking.

“It’s just… Watching you out there today, you looked so happy. Which I loved,” he backtracked quickly, like Nolan was gonna bitch about it. “But you never look that way in Philly. I know it's different, but you never look that way at _me._ And it's not like you’re particularly verbal about it, which is usually fine, but… I just get worried, sometimes. That for me you’re it, and for you, I’m… Here.” 

“You think I don’t love you, Teeks?”

“Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that.” He hesitated. “Sometimes… I just wish you’d say you liked me.”

“Hmmm.” Even as he was talking, Teeks was melting into him, like it was something he couldn’t help. They kept turning in the water, light refracting off the waves, and Nolan ran a hand up TK’s back to watch the droplets on his skin dry in the sun. When he spoke, he spoke directly into the skin of TK’s throat, low and rumbly and hopefully comforting. “So you think I don’t like you.”

“Mmhmm,” Teeks replied.

“Would it help if I said some things I like about you?”

“I guess.”

“I like that you tie my ties for me. And my shoes.”

“You really should learn to tie shoes, Patty.”

“And lose my excuse to have you on your knees in front of me? Never.” He knew he was deflecting a little, but he hated talking about this shit. But he could feel Travis smiling into his shoulder, so he guessed it was working. If his boyfriend needed to know he was liked, fuck, he guessed he was going to make sure he knew. “I like that you take care of me without me having to ask. You just do it, defending me on the ice and driving me around and making sure I’m taking my meds. It's like you know that I’m not gonna ask, but that I still need it. You’re so perceptive. People don’t realize that about you, that you pick up on everything.” Now that he’d started talking, Nolan could feel the dam breaking. It was like he had all these stored up feelings about Travis that he’d been too afraid to say until the moment Travis needed to hear them, and now they were overtaking him and he was clutching to Travis like a life preserver. “I like that you never shut up and how you never make me fill the silences and how easy you make it just to be me, you never expect anything from me that I’m not, and I like that you make me laugh--” 

“Do not--”

“You know you do, and I know you do because you keep track of how many times you do it.”

“Shit, I guess I do.” 

“Yeah, you’re pretty gone for me, you fuckin’ loser.” When he pulled back to look at Travis he was smiling, finally, though there was still a touch of bitter in the sweet.

“It’s not just that. I _need_ you, Patty. Do you need me?”

“Teeks, I don’t _want_ to need anybody. It's not… It's not part of the plan.” Travis’ face falls for just a moment before Nolan puts a finger under his scraggly chin to lift it up to look at him one more time. “Or it wasn’t. And then you had to go and fuck all that up. You and your terrible fucking beard and your terrible fucking chirps and your pretty eyes and your smile that you just give away like, so freely all the time. You’re so brave in a way that I’m just not, and that’s scary. So just, forgive me if I hate you for that and if I love you for that and also if I just really, really, yeah, _need_ to be around you for that.” 

This time the smile that passed between them was easy and free, and he took it as an invitation to transform it into a kiss that was sweet and slow. It was exploratory, like Travis wasn’t quite sure whose mouth had said all these things--surely it couldn’t be _his_ Nolan--but whoever it was was someone he liked. Someone he _really_ liked, from the way his thighs tightened around Nolan’s waist and his fingers came up into his hair. And then there was the way he sucked Nolan’s bottom lip into his mouth, and suddenly they were speaking Nolan’s language again. He’d said more than his fair share already today, but in this, he could speak just as much as Konecny.

TK was busy too, trying to tug them back toward the dock without creating an inch of space between them. It was so goofy, and so endearing, and yeah, a little sexy, too. And fuck, Nolan was so happy to have him back. To be the one who got to _earn_ him back and make him feel secure and sexy and safe. Like he did for Nolan. It wasn’t often he expressed himself this much. Tomorrow he and TK would annoy each other again and it would be fun in its own way. But for now, he couldn’t help but dig his fingers in a little tighter and smile gratefully into Travis’ mouth.

“What’s so funny?” Travis said. “I thought you’d wanna get home before I fucked you but I guess we can do it here.”

“And ladies and gentlemen,” Nolan replied, “he’s back.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
